#realityhoudini

They were also like a dying star in the Force, and already knew how to trick the perceptions of sentients to pass unnoticed and unseen, which brought him to the question of why someone had taught them that at an age when that was the last thing you wanted a youngling who was not supposed to go missing to know.

Mace felt a lot of things when he looked down at one Tal’ika Fox-Kenobi, and not all of them were positive, but they were all very, very sure. Confident. Aching, in their own way.

And the child just looked at him, set their stubborn jaw, and flopped down on the grass of the Room of One Thousand Fountains before reaching up with one tan hand to grasp his own.

“I want to meditate,” they announced, and Mace felt something in his heart ache, because what child their age wanted to meditate?

“Alright,” he agreed, and sat down with them. “But can we speak first?”

They were old, but they had also been raised by a Jedi. And apparently a whole cluster of clones, but that was neither here nor there. So, realistically, they were a youngling, and didn’t need to be initiated into the Jedi, but they also needed to be verified. For a lot of reasons. The way Qui-Gon had brought Anakin into the temple had been a hot mess, ignoring a variety of regulations that were in place to protect a prospective initiate, spouting off about prophecies and things that a child shouldn’t have to worry about, but Anakin had been a lot of things. And Tal’ika had been a lot of things, too. He wasn’t going to do this in the council chambers, which were big and terrifying for someone so young. No, the fountains were a far safer place, far more secure and less scary.

“Yes,” Tal’ika replied, but they hadn’t let go of his hand. Raised by clones, indeed. They were probably used to contact, and constant contact, at that.

“Alright,” he said slowly, and let his big hand lay out on his knee so they could trace over the lines in his palm and pick at his calluses. “You can’t answer wrong, so just be honest with me, and I will be honest with you. Is that fair?”

Tal’ika paused, tilting their head in consideration as they looked for loopholes in that statement, before they nodded, firm and sure.

“Yes. That’s fair,” they decided, firmly, with confidence that made his heart sing. This was a child that was young, and well adjusted, and well loved, for all the turmoil he sensed in them.

“Thank you,” he said seriously, because he always made a habit to thank young ones. “Can I ask you about where you’re from?”

“A ship,” they replied. “The last one blew up, so Cody called help, so we’ve been on the Havoc Marauder.”

Okay, that was concerning. Mace knew that name. No wonder Tal’ika already bit three people. He couldn’t even blame them.

“Not on a star destroyer?” He hedged out, and they scrunched up their nose as they turned his hand over to trace the curves of his fingers.

“Why would I be on a star destroyer? Plo saved me from the Empire, why would I be back with them?”

The what now?

“Why did he save you?” He asked, and they looked up at him like he was stupid.

“Because they killed people like me,” they replied, like it was obvious. “They killed you.”

“I see,” he said seriously, as something uncomfortable settled in his gut. “How did they manage that?”

“You tried to arrest the Emperor, and then he killed the whole council and the Order and threw you out a window,” they replied and frowned. “You don’t take care of your cuticles, Master Windu. That’s not healthy. Plo makes a good cream for cuticles.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him for it,” Mace promised, because Plo did make good cuticle cream, and was constantly harassing Mace in that polite way about how he kept leaving his cuticles cracked and bleeding, and that was a bit easier to focus on than the whole Order being killed. “How long ago was that?”

“Uh... thirteen years? I think? I wasn’t born yet. There’s chips in my bavodu’e’s heads, and they had to kill you. Plo likes to kidnap them so he can take them out. He even taught me how! It’s fun. Better than staying on the ship, anyways,” they responded and rubbed at his cuticles with a little furrow in their brow. “Your cuticles are a mess.”

“My apologies. I’ve been too busy to take care of my cuticles,” Mace said, because they were really liking to circle back to the cuticles. Chips? What on earth? “Tell me about how you’ve been living.”

“We have to travel around a lot, on account of me and the bavodu’e being Impir-icle property that stole ourselves,” Tal’ika responded and shifted their little fingers to start pushing back the offending cuticles. “And Plo is supposed to be dead, so they’re pretty mad about that. He’s very proud that he keeps making them mad. He won’t say it, of course, but he’s very proud.”

“Who do you live with?” Mace prompted, and Tal’ika sneezed. He didn’t even flinch at the flying bits of snot that splattered his hand. They had at least tried to do it into their arm, and they wiped his skin off with their sleeve before going right back to getting his cuticles presentable.

“Uh... Right now, we have Plo, Wolffe, Sinker, Cody, Rex, and we just kidnapped Gregor. Oh! And the Bad Batch. Echo is teaching me how to slice, and Hunter gave me a knife, and Crosshair taught me how to make a headshot. Cody was upset about that. Actually, Cody is upset about everything everyone is doing, because the Bad Batch are ‘gremlins’ and are making me ‘too feral and competentent’. Neyo just left, to join the Rebellion, and he took Thire with him, because Thire keeps getting sad about me, and Neyo didn’t want him to be alone. I think I made him sad, too. But they might be sad because Bly just marched on. He didn’t do well when we took the chip out and got sick. I mean, not sick like when I get a tummy ache, but sick like he didn’t want to get out of bed and just stared at the wall all day. He wasn’t doing well, and then he was gone, and Neyo was trying to take care of him, but Rex said sometimes other people aren’t enough to make you better.”

Mace knew Commander Bly, and the casual hints being dropped that Tal’ika didn’t fully understand was making his stomach sink in his gut. Empire, Order dead, chips that made the clones kill their Jedi, Plo kidnapping clones to take the chips out... It painted a morbid picture for Bly, and a morbid one for Aayla, and he wasn’t certain he wanted to confront the picture in the presence of a child.

“Sometimes people aren’t enough,” he agreed, as careful as he could manage, and Tal’ika looked at him with the big amber eyes he’d seen a million times.

“Is that why Plo is sad?”

“... Yes. That’s why Plo is sad,” because even now Plo was sad, and Mace hated to see it. He couldn’t imagine how Plo would be in the aftermath of a very morbid future Tal’ika was painting. “Can you tell me how Plo is teaching you?”

“Everyone teaches me,” Tal’ika replied dismissively, and went back to pushing back his cuticles. “But Plo and I do meditation in the morning. And before bed. It’s a little hard, with how everyone is sleeping on top of each other right now. Not much room. Lots of people. I have to share a bed with Echo and Tech, cause we’re the smallest. We do a lot of exercises, and he teaches me things.”

“Like how you hide,” Mace supplied, and they nodded firmly.

“Yeah. And the Code, but they also teach me the Resol’nare. Plo lets them, though, so long as I understand how to follow the Code.”

It would seem that in the aftermath of devastation, what few clones left were clinging to the Mandalorian diaspora. He didn’t know how to feel about that. Did that make Tal’ika the second Mandalorian Jedi in history? Force, that was going to be a headache when they got older.

“And your regular studies?”

“Uh...” Color rose in their cheeks. “Leia says they are ‘un-or-tho-dox, but Tech says they’re re-le-vant.”

In hindsight, he shouldn’t have expected much from a half feral Jedi youngling raised by some of the most unorthodox clones he had ever heard of. Cody was wonderful, but he had met Captain Rex, and he knew for a fact their educational modules had to be a hot mess. And then Plo had gone and tossed them in with the damned Bad Batch. Granted, it sounded like he was desperate, given the previous ship blowing up, but the very thought of Tech getting his hands on a hyper intelligent Force sensitive child’s educational requirements was headache inducing.

Yes, the Temple was going to be better for them. Much better for them.

“Can we meditate now?” Tal’ika asked, their voice barely pitching into a whine, and Mace decided he’d grilled them enough. The picture they painted was a bleak future, where the survivors fought for what little happiness a hard galaxy could afford them. And, well, he still had to accept them into the temple, and he had to actually examine their Force core in order to do that.

He knew they would pass, of course, just as sure as he knew they would be his. It was a quiet, uncomfortable confidence in his gut that he hadn’t felt since he first laid eyes on Depa, but this was going to be his padawan, Obi-Wan and Plo be damned.

“Yes. Of course. May I--- Oh.”

Tal’ika had simply climbed to their feet and plopped right between his crossed legs. Right. Raised by clones. Of course Plo would indulge their tactile nature in meditation, and of course they were still young enough to get away with it.

Tal’ika’s spine straightened, and then they breathed out, their eyes slipping shut as they crossed their legs to balance on his calves. Mace just came to the conclusion that this child was forceful, possibly a little too forceful, but there was little harm in it. They evidently had a good head on their shoulders, and far be it from Mace to ever tell a little one no. So, he just balanced his hands on his knees and relaxed into a meditation with their warm back pressed up against his chest.

“Do you need me to walk you through it?” He asked, and they firmly shook their head no.

“No. Plo says it’s time for me to start doing it on my own,” they replied firmly, and Mace’s lips twitched in a smile. Of course they were going to be advanced. This was a Kenobi child.

“Alright. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

They were so firm, so sure of themselves. He didn’t think they’d ever heard a disparaging word from someone in their life, and he was quietly glad for it. There was nothing that gave him greater hope than a young child who knew exactly who they were and what they wanted, a child who had never once been given room to doubt themselves and their needs, who expressed things firmly and aggressively without a hint of shame. It was a good thing.

Slipping into meditation was as easy as breathing. Their little back pressed against his chest, and he followed each breath as they sunk into the Force together, their Force signatures tangling together as they steadily dropped their shields to share with him. Mace let them drift, cataloguing and categorizing the conflicting emotions that had risen up within himself and setting them aside. Anger was there, and pain, and confusion, and fear. How could he not be afraid? They had essentially spoken of genocides, of the clones and the Jedi, and this was his home. His family. He was the Grand Master of the Order, and he had evidently failed it in their time.

He would have to do better.

Tal’ika was still at an age where they needed a little help, and Mace set to the task with an age-old comfort as he helped them identify the emotions in their body that was too damn small for the burning Force presence that engulfed them. They were angry, and they were terrified, despite the cool exterior. They had communicated as much as they could, but someone, namely Plo, had evidently taught them extensively about when words weren’t enough, the Force would suffice. No wonder they had been so demanding about meditation. The fear of all the changes and confusion was a roiling core, and Mace nudged along at their shields, coaxing them into letting them down so he could help.

They did, easily, with only the trust of a child, and Mace hummed as he reached out to touch that fear and press forward with comfort and reassurance. Letting go wasn’t enough, sometimes. It took awhile to learn, and they were far too young to have it mastered. Being validated was important, too, and he made sure to acknowledge the fear and uncertainty overtaking them. It was only natural.

Inch by inch, they let go of the fear, and he buffeted them with warmth and acceptance as they did. The trust of a child was always an overwhelming sort of thing, and he couldn’t help but wish he could spend more time with younglings. It was a lot easier, even with time-traveling post-apocalypse younglings. Adults got wrapped up in their emotions and consumed by them. Younglings, though, did a lot better with letting comfort be comfort and fear be fear and anger be anger. They didn’t mix things up, took anger for safety and fear for a shield.

After helping them detach from their fear and pain and loneliness, which they let go with surprising swiftness, he spent a little time nudging along their shields and examining who the Force was telling him they were. Tal’ika Fox, the child of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard, was a lot more than their lineage. Sifting around, he could see that they were kind, at their core, not at all like their father, who Mace knew never hesitated to cut someone down if they stood in the way of justice. No, this was someone who would hesitate, and at any given opportunity. However, interspersed with that kindness and desire to help was an unsteady nature. No, even unstable, which could be attributed to the cloning techniques used to make them. Or perhaps they had been engineered to be more aggressive and unbalanced. He wouldn’t put it past the Kaminoans. Plo had been apparently doing his damned best to prove the difference in nature versus nurture, though, given how Tal’ika had just demanded meditation when they felt like they couldn’t keep it together for much longer. As they got older, they might need real medication to help balance them out, but for now they could do their best to balance them out in the temple and their upbringing.

Compassion was there, too. Boundless compassion, and forgiveness, which was going to be a given, given their Plo’s apparent proclivities for kidnapping and yanking control chips out of clones’ heads. They’d probably been shot at a fair number of the clones they’d saved, and probably had been scared by a good amount of them, but here they were. All of the tenants of the Order so entrenched in their being.

Yes. They would be fine for the Jedi.

It was almost nice, sitting in the grass with them on his lap, taking this meditation so seriously, serious as a heart attack. He could feel their single minded focus, and it brought a sense of fondness to the whole ordeal. He needed to do this more often, probably after he solved the problems presented by their little time traveling initiate. He almost lost track of time, just letting the Force flow around them as he let his mind drift, emotions rising up and being set to the side, correcting nudges given whenever their attention began to focus. In fact, he did lose track of time, right up until the moment someone cleared their throat behind him. He hadn’t even felt Ponds come up, more focused on fixing Tal’ika’s posture.

“Commander,” he said as he opened his eyes. Tal’ika let out a quiet noise of frustration at the interruption, and he patted them on their shoulder.

“You told me to collect you for the briefing, sir,” Ponds said, and Mace ignored the mild amusement radiating off the man at the sight of his general with a mini Obi-Wan in his lap.

“Well, we’ll have to drop Initiate Tal’ika off at their creche, first,” he replied as Tal’ika climbed to their feet and straightened their robes, which they seemed to be deeply displeased to be wearing.

“I can take myself,” Tal’ika declared, and Mace cringed at the thought.

“The last time you ‘took yourself’ to the creche, you ended up in the restricted section of the Archives with a lightsaber that did not belong to you,” he replied, and Tal’ika paused.

“Well, if you don’t want your weapons to go missing, you shouldn’t leave them laying around just anywhere,” they sniffed. “Cody told me Obi-Wan was always leaving his saber everywhere, so I was really doing a good deed. For Cody.”

Ponds was physically restraining himself from laughing, and Mace was just infinitely glad he had no bad habits, because he wasn’t sure he’d survive the humiliation of Tal’ika helpfully correcting his.

“I’m not sure Obi-Wan would agree with you, Tal’ika,” he said gravely, and Tal’ika crinkled up their nose.

“That’s because he doesn’t know what’s good for him, Master Windu.”

“Sir, you are going to miss the briefing,” Ponds cautioned, and Mace leaned over to pick Tal’ika up and set them on his hip.

“I’m the Grand Master of the Jedi Order. They can wait,” he replied, and Tal’ika snorted.

“That’s abuse of power,” they said, very seriously, like they had heard it many, many times before.

“We all have our vices, Initiate Tal’ika,” Mace replied, just as seriously, and Tal’ika took his face in two very small hands to turn it to them so they could look him directly in the eye.

“I don’t.”